Beautiful Melodies and Terrible Things
by The Death Frisbee
Summary: A series of five drabbles connected by five songs, based on a book series that's like "Ocean's Eleven" meets George R.R. Martin. The songs are from a challenge at the Reviews Lounge, Too.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** All five of these drabbles are in response to ckorkows' song fic challenge, and are based on the Gentlemen Bastards book series, by Scott Lynch. The first three are set during _The Lies of Locke Lamora_, and the next two during _Red Seas Under Red Skies_. For those of you who don't know the canon, think of it as _Ocean's Eleven_ meets George R.R. Martin: a crime caper set somewhere between high and low fantasy, with the magic of the former and the grit of the latter. If you've read any Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, you're on generally the right track as well. Authors' notes at the end of each will identify the song.

The title of the collection is from a quote by Tom Waits.

* * *

**I **

There were few things more likely to dampen the mood than the whine of a twelve-year-old thieves' apprentice. "Why do I have to serve dinner again? We have enough from the last take. Let's hire someone to do it."

Even halfway across the room, busy counting out coins, and separating the gold from the dross, Locke Lamora caught the tone in Bug's voice. Given the dark looks both Sanza twins were shooting at him, Bug's complaint would have been hard to miss even if Locke hadn't been listening.

"_Because_, Bug, it's good for your moral education."

"Serving dinner?" Bug shook his head at the seemingly unlikely proposition.

Locke glanced up from the pile of money. "Jean cooked, didn't he? And you never hear him complaining about that."

"Nor us, _garrista_," said Calo.

"He's a good cook," agreed Galdo.

"See, Bug? Everyone here is in agreement, except for you," Locke observed. "And this _is_ a democracy, anyway. So you're outvoted. Besides, it's only soup. Even you can handle soup."

Jean had been tending the soup pot all day, and had only stepped out for a moment to relieve himself on the cobblestones in the back alley. Even unattended, the soup's aroma had spread throughout the thieves' den.

Although he would never have admitted it to Bug or the twins, or maybe even to Jean, Locke Lamora was hungry. He had spent the entire day waiting out some shopkeeper over at Twosilver Green, a man whose acquaintance would be useful going forward with their latest scheme, but the man hadn't even arrived. Wasted effort always made him feel as if he was starving, although he could never be sure if it was physical hunger or the loss of the day's catch that had created the gnawing, dull ache.

Bug clinked the metal spoon against the soup pot, causing one of the Sanza twins to throw something the boy's way. Their apprentice's yelp was quickly drowned out by Jean's voice; Locke didn't need to glance up to know that their usual cook had returned.

"More gently, Bug. You'll scratch up the pot that way, and then the soup will cook unevenly."

Bug's voice was tight, very nearly offended. "Don't care."

"Yes, you do. Because if you scratch up the soup pot, I'll beat you with it until you can't see straight, and turn you out onto the streets."

The threat was idle. Locke could tell that instantly. However, Bug could not.

"No, you wouldn't, Jean! Locke wouldn't let you! Isn't that right, Locke?"

Locke shrugged, uncaring. "Might also be good for your moral education."

He could hear Jean chuckle, low and deep, and as Locke turned back to sorting out their riches from the day, Bug quieted down, letting Jean teach him how to ladle soup into bowls without spilling half of it. Maybe one day the boy would graduate from soup-stirrer to one of the Right People, a proper thief and a true Gentleman Bastard. Locke Lamora could only hope it would happen.

* * *

**Song:** "Watching You," by Rodney Atkins.


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

"She's not coming back, you know."

"Crooked Warden, Jean. I know that. Sabetha said she was off again, to do her own thing, and I'm sure she is."

Jean looked at his friend, shaking his head gravely. There weren't words to describe what Locke was feeling, any more than there were words to describe how he could go about solving his friend's problem. He'd tried fixing Locke up with a prostitute or two to make the wait easier, but they were blondes, and Locke had no interest in blondes. Doña Salvara was clever enough to have interested the Gentleman Bastard, and knew about their scheme, if Locke's report from his meeting had been correct. But not even she had drawn Locke's attention away from Sabetha. Jean had even caught him mumbling in his sleep about her, and then had promptly tried to forget it.

A glance out the window told him Falselight was spreading through Camorr, all the Elderglass surfaces glowing with an unnatural sheen. Jean Tannen had always felt a little uneasy about the way that the city looked in this pretend twilight, and preferred to spend this hour indoors, reading a book or a play. He would much rather have waited until the eeriness of Falselight drew back and was replaced with true night and lanterns. Now, though, he had to get Locke out in the city, in this weird hour of not-quite-night.

"Do you remember when we were boys, Locke, and Chains sent Sabetha away after she broke out something awful?"

"He said it was because of the plague." Locke was distracted. "I never thought that was the truth."

"Whatever it was about doesn't matter," Jean said. "You need to stop thinking about her. She'll be back in due time, and things will be just as they were."

Locke scoffed unpleasantly. "And that's why we haven't seen her since last year."

"Regardless, if you keep thinking about her, it'll seem five more years before she reappears. Wherever she is right now, Locke, she _isn't here_, and that's what matters." Jean mused, leaning over his knees thoughtfully. "There's a quote from a work by Lucarno – "

That was enough to get Locke to rise to his feet. "I'm going out. Fuck Lucarno, Jean."

Jean only smiled at Locke's sudden urge to flee his company. "Listen to the Sanza brothers, Locke. A girl would take the edge off."

"I don't want 'a girl,' Jean. I want her."

Jean smiled sadly. "You'll be waiting a long, long time."

* * *

**Song:** "In This River," by Black Label Society.


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

Doña Sofia Salvara smiled at the unremarkable figure before her, smoothing her dress where it bunched up around her knees, making her look less noble and more bourgeois than she would have preferred. The blue silk piece had been a nice dress once, a piece of clothing that she could wear to parties and to other social events, but now it was mainly fit for wearing around the house.

It was a disappointment to have lost the proper use of the dress, in a way. More than one noblewoman had told her that the blue offset her dark skin and blonde hair in a way that few other colors would. Perhaps her seamstress had more of the same material lying around, and could make a new one at Sofia's request. Provided their fortunes improved in the near future, she would have to ask her husband for some money.

That very same request, however, had brought Lukas Fehrwight here. Sofia studied the man, who was halfway through an alchemical orange, the liquor and the fruit mingling together at once. Her voice was as apologetic as she could make it without seeming as if she was lowering her station for his sake. "I'm afraid that's the long and short of it, Master Fehrwight. We simply can't provide you with any more funds for your services. You have been most helpful with the investment of our crowns, though, and we hope someday to repay that help."

"Most helpful, Lukas," her husband agreed.

The man who sat before them was neither Midnighter nor merchant, they knew, but they could not be sure _what_, exactly, he was. It had been the subject of many discussions, but very few of them had been fruitful, unlike her orchards.

Sofia leaned forward. "When we find ourselves with cash again, you will most assuredly be our first contact." She hesitated. "Our second, if you discount my husband's tailor."

The smile that Fehrwight shot them was phony. She could tell that from the way his lips turned up but his eyes did not warm. That was not a surprise. She would have expected it even if he were a real merchant, and not the fraud that he surely was. What was surprising, though, was that he did not respond with anger. He did not respond at all, beyond just that feigned smile, and that tipped her off further.

"If you extracted the juice from these fruits, Doña Salvara, you could probably make back more than enough money to continue our association."

Doña Salvara responded as smoothly as Fehrweight had spoken. "Master Fehrwight, surely you know the difference between a guaranteed investment and a considered risk. You are in finances, aren't you?"

The brown-haired man nodded shortly, but chose not to speak.

"You are, as any banker would put it, a considered risk. You come here sporting a bruise from brigands, so you say, and our man Conté is in much the same way. You'll forgive me if I suspect that you and Conté fell into much the same trap last night. Anyone who is gullible enough for that…" She trailed off, letting their guest draw his own conclusions as to the continuation.

She suspected that this supposed merchant had been injured in some other fashion besides falling prey to cutpurses, but now was not the time to say such. She had to meet with Doña Vorchenza in a few days' time, and she certainly did not want the man who sat before them knowing she had roused his suspicions. Not until Doña Angiavesta Vorchenza knew how and why the Salvaras had entertained the Thorn of Camorr in whatever con job he had planned.

For now, though, she would let her husband do the talking. Fehrwight, or whatever his real name was, surely knew that she was no simpleminded girl, but her husband, as much as he loved her, had no suspicion that she was cleverer than he was, and she was content to let him think that for as long as the

"I'm afraid you'll have to find your money some other way, Lukas," Don Salvara said, his voice clear and resounding. "We simply aren't buying what you're selling."

For just the briefest instant, Doña Sofia Salvara saw so-called Lukas Fehrwight's expression dropped, before he covered it up with a smile and responded to her husband: "Well, then, have I got an _even better_ proposition for you."

* * *

**Song:** "Barbie Girl," by Aqua.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV**

For days after Locke drank the poison and slipped Jean the antidote, Jean Tannen watched his friend with a growing sense of unease. The further away that they got from Tal Verrar, the Rose of the Gods, the further they got from the only place where they could get a second helping of the antidote to the poison currently burning through Locke's body.

Jean manned the boat, letting his friend do the hard work of lying in the back of the small craft with the kitten crawling all over him. "For good luck," Locke had said, but Jean knew that wasn't entirely the case. Some part of him hoped that the superstition was true, though. Aza Guilla would come for them both, but she couldn't yet have his friend. Jean would make sure of it.

"How are you feeling, Locke?"

Locke muttered something uncharitable, involving a 'fuck' or two and possibly even a 'fuck off' for good measure, but Jean couldn't be sure. His friend had been sleeping, the black kitten curled up in the crook of his arm, and Jean felt slightly guilty for waking him.

"We'll be well out of Tal Verran waters by the time you wake up again, Locke. You should rest."

"I _was_ resting. Until some big, bespectacled son of a bitch decided it was time to wake me up and ask me how I was feeling."

Jean had to hide a smile. "You could have been dead."

"Not yet," Locke murmured. "You're for the Lady of the Long Silence. You should know." His head hit the boat's floorboards again, with a slightly startling thump. "So we're just going to sail all over the Sea of Brass until we find somewhere that looks worth the taking?"

"You're awfully particular for someone who's supposed to be resting." Jean said, taking the opportunity to look down at his friend, whose eyelids fluttered weakly in acknowledgment.

They should have split the antidote as they had agreed, but Locke had been stubborn and deceptive and had insisted that Jean take the entire thing. Even now, Jean wanted to thrash the smaller man for that, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. Not yet. Not when Locke could only have days or weeks to live. He didn't deserve to live through them with broken bones.

Jean felt his hands tighten on the oar. His arms burned from constant rowing, and his head was pounding from the constant cry of seagulls. Locke was right about one thing, though. They had been sailing all over the Sea of Brass. They couldn't go back to Port Prodigal. With Ezri's death and Captain Drakasha's severing ties, they wouldn't meet as warm a welcome as they should have liked.

"You should have taken the antidote, Locke."

"I said I wouldn't. You knew I wouldn't."

"Well, it's hard to find a place to set anchor with you about to die."

Locke lifted his head up, gray eyes staring at Jean. "Just keep rowing."

It wasn't worth the argument. Besides, either his glasses were far too fogged with the salt and mist of sea spray, or he could see land up ahead. It was probably a mirage, but he set his sight towards it and pressed on, not bothering to argue with Locke any longer.

* * *

**Song:** "Rehab," by Amy Winehouse.


	5. Chapter 5

**V**

"They're all idiots. Every last stupid one of them!" Locke's face was lit up with excitement; he could see it in their bedroom mirror, as chipped as it was. Still, he wasn't about to scorn or spurn the small boarding house they'd found here on one of the Pearls of Iono. It was further north than he would have liked, no doubt under the surveillance of a Bondsmage from Karthain, but it would do for the night. They could make the score and clear out more quickly than the Bondsmagi could come after them.

He wasn't poisoned. He couldn't be poisoned. It had been weeks, now, and minus some exhaustion, he was feeling fine. Jean was just as tired as Locke himself was, but then again, Jean had done all the rowing to get them as far into the Sea of Brass as they were, so Locke supposed that his friend was due a rest. Jean's massive form lay unmoving on the larger of the two beds in the room, but he was awake. Locke could tell from the lift of his brows.

"We'll be rich again, Jean, and well off once more. Just like you promised. Just like _I_ promised. Nothing to worry about except whether the poison will take effect and where we can find another antidote."

"Not from Stragos," Jean replied, not bothering to move an inch.

"No, certainly not from Maxilian Stragos." The archon had been left most unpleasantly on the docks, stuffed into a sack as a death-offering to Jean's Ezri, and Stragos' alchemist Xandrin was even more certainly dead, and so in no state to provide them with another dose. Locke gazed at himself in the mirror again, schooled his face into something less expressive. They'd shown up on the beach posing as down-on-their-luck castaways, and as uncomfortably close to the truth as that was, it wouldn't look good to seem like they really _wanted_ to rob people and lift coinpurses.

"If I get enough tonight, Jean, I'll make sure to get us a bottle of wine, and pay to use the baths down the hall."

"Never thought I'd spend so much time rowing in my life."

"You're better at it than I am. I'm better at this than you are. It's an equal division of labor."

Jean groaned. "Say that again, and I'll kick your fucking teeth out."

Locke smiled at his own reflection in the mirror. At least Jean was back to his old self. They would be rich again tonight, if the Crooked Warden favored him. He had done enough penance having to put up with the endless boat ride that, in a way, he deserved a present. As soon as they had enough money to pay for a faster ride across the Sea of Brass, Locke would go settle the score with Requin at the Sinspire, and, hopefully, things would be just as they were. Already, he could feel excitement bubbling within him, warming him and propelling him to the door of their room.

Their brief holiday on the Pearl was shaping up to be a profitable excursion indeed.

* * *

**Song:** "White Christmas," by Bing Crosby.


End file.
